He stood in the middle of the morning room and prayed Leonora didn’t hear of his arrival. What he wanted to achieve would be easier accomplished between gentlemen, without the distracting presence of the object central to their discussion.
The butler returned and conducted him to the library. He entered and found Sir Humphrey and Jeremy alone, and heaved a small sigh of relief.
“Trentham! Welcome!” Seated as he had been on Tristan’s earlier visit, in the armchair by the fire with—Tristan was almost certain—the same book open on his knee, Humphrey waved him to the chaise. “Sit down, sit down, and tell us what we can do for you.”
Jeremy, too, looked up and nodded a greeting. Tristan returned the nod as he sat. Again, he got the impression little had changed on Jeremy’s desk except, perhaps, the particular page he was studying.
Catching his glance, Jeremy smiled. “Indeed, I’ll be grateful for a respite.” He waved at the book before him. “Deciphering this Sumerian script is deuced hard on the eyes.”
Humphrey snorted. “Better that than this.” He indicated the tome on his knees. “More than a century later, but they weren’t any neater. Why they couldn’t use decent quills—” He broke off, then grinned engagingly at Tristan. “But you’ve not come to hear about that. You mustn’t let us get started, or we can talk scripts for hours.”
Tristan’s mind boggled.
“So!” Humphrey closed the tome on his lap. “How can we help you, heh?”
“It’s not so much a matter of help.” He was feeling his way, unsure of his best approach. “I thought I should let you know that there was an attempted burglary at Number 12 last night.”
“Good God!” Humphrey was as taken aback as Tristan could have wished. “Dashed bounders! Getting a great deal too above themselves these days.”
“Indeed.” Tristan grabbed back the reins before Humphrey could bolt. “But in this case, the builders noticed that some tampering had occurred on the previous night, so we mounted a watch last night. The felon returned and entered the house—we would have caught him but for some unexpected obstacles. As things fell out, he escaped, but it appeared he was…let us say not the expected low-class villain. Indeed, he bore all the signs of being a gentleman.”
“A gentleman?” Humphrey was astounded. “A gentleman breaking into houses?”
“So it seems.”
“But what would a gentleman be after?” Frowning, Jeremy met Tristan’s gaze. “It seems quite nonsensical to me.”
Jeremy’s tone was dismissive; Tristan squelched his exasperation. “Indeed. Even more amazing is that a burglar would bother breaking into a completely empty house.” He looked at Humphrey, then Jeremy. “There’s literally nothing in Number 12, and given the builders’ paraphernalia and presence throughout the day, that fact must be patently obvious.”
Both Humphrey and Jeremy only looked more puzzled, as if the entire subject was completely beyond them. Tristan knew all about deceptiveness; he was starting to suspect he was watching a practiced performance. His voice hardened. “It occurred to me that the attempt to gain access to Number 12 might be linked to the two attempted burglaries here.”
Both faces turned to him remained blank and vague. Too blank and vague. They understood everything, but were steadfastly refusing to react.
He deliberately let the silence grow awkward. Eventually, Jeremy cleared his throat. “How so?”
He nearly gave up; only a trenchant determination fueled by something very like anger that they shouldn’t be allowed so easily to abdicate their responsibilities and retreat into their long-dead world, leaving Leonora to cope by herself in this one, had him leaning forward, with his gaze capturing theirs. “What if the burglar isn’t your usual run of thief, and all evidence suggests that’s so, but instead he’s after something specific—some item that has value to him. If that item is here, in this house, then—”
The door opened.
Leonora swept in. Her eyes found him; she beamed. “My lord! How delightful to see you again.”
Rising, Tristan met her eyes. She wasn’t delighted—she was in a flat panic. She glided up; inwardly disgusted with how poorly things had gone, he seized the inherent advantage and held out his hand.
She blinked at it, but after only the slightest hesitation surrendered her fingers. He bowed; she curtsied. Her fingers quivered in his.
The courtesies satisfied, he drew her to sit beside him on the chaise. She had no option but to do so. As, tense and on edge, she sank onto the damask, Humphrey said, “Trentham’s just told us there was a burglary next door—just last night. Blackguard escaped, unfortunately.”
“Indeed?” Eyes wide, she turned to Tristan as he sat again, angling herself so she could watch his face.
He caught her eye. “Just so.” His dry tone wasn’t wasted on her. “I was just suggesting that the attempt to gain access to Number 12 might be connected to the previous attempts to gain entry here.”
She, he knew, had arrived at the same conclusion, and that sometime ago.
“I still don’t see any real link.” Jeremy leaned on his book and fixed Tristan with a steady but still dismissive gaze. “I mean, burglars try their hand wherever they might, don’t they?”
Tristan nodded. “Which is why it seems odd that this ‘burglar’—and I think we can safely assume all the attempts have been by the same party—continues to push his luck in Montrose Place despite his failures to date.”